Red Lights and Bike-To-Work-Week

For those still driving their Suburban Assault Vehicles to work this week, you must have missed the memo: this week has been Massachusetts Bike-To-Work-Week, also called the Bay State Bike Week.

As a regular bicycle commuter, I can say that I saw more than the usual number of cyclists on the road this week, which was an encouraging sight.

But my most unexpected observation was how many of the cyclists were obeying the road laws: stopping for stop signs and red lights. During the week, I often saw 3-4 cyclists wait out the red light at intersections when there was no cross traffic. They may be newbies, but they can teach those hardened, old, aggressive cyclists a thing or two about safe riding practices.

A few tidbits:

• Adam Gaffin has a nice wrap-up on blogging about the week's events.
• The Boston Herald has a video of Mayor Thomas Menino bicycling; he should visit his local bike shop to get his seat height re-adjusted.
• A couple of Cambridge thug-clists did some bad work on a motorist.
• The week's events didn't get off on the right pedal when a crazy series of accidents in Allston's Packard's Corner took out a bunch of cars -- as well as a poor, parked bicycle in the pictures that no one seemed to want to note in the captions.
• Eric from JP got nailed by a taxi that failed to yield to him in a bike lane -- but he lived to tell about it because of his helmet. Where are those bumper stickers "Bicycles Are Everywhere"?
  

Image of traffic lights by B Tal provided through a Creative Commons license.